TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday suggested a summit with China would improve a relationship that has been badly troubled for months.
The latest sign of a possible thaw came the day Japan’s cabinet approved a rise in defence spending for the first time in over a decade, explicitly aimed at beefing up defence of a contested island chain.
It also came as Japan’s already well-equipped coast guard said it was creating a special unit with 10 new large patrol boats and a 600-strong force to oversee the East China Sea archipelago.
“A high-level meeting should be held because there is a problem. If necessary, there might be a need to build the... relationship again, starting with a summit meeting,” Abe told Nippon Television.
Asia’s two largest economies have been at diplomatic daggers drawn since Tokyo nationalised the Senkakus in September.
Japan insisted its move to take formal ownership of islands it controls was nothing more than administrative, transferring the title deeds from an individual to the state.
But China reacted with fury to the move over what it calls the Diaoyus, accusing Japan of reverting to its war-like ways of the last century and forgetting the lessons of history.
Anti-Japan demonstrations erupted in China, targetting Japanese businesses and shops and badly denting the multi-billion dollar relationship on which both countries are dependent.
Since the nationalisation, China has repeatedly sent its ships into waters around the islands in a move that analysts say is intended to prove Japan does not have effective control over them.
Beijing’s planes have also flirted with the area and on at least one occasion ventured into what Japan considers its airspace, a move that led to commanders scrambling Japanese fighter planes.
Abe’s apparently softer tone — which stands in marked contrast to the rhetoric of his election campaign — comes after his envoy met China’s president-in-waiting Xi Jinping in Beijing last week.
AFP
